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Ted Cruz just admit it: You're too Canadian, says constitutional expert

Mary Brigid McManamon of Widener University's Delaware Law School says the Republican contender, who spent his first few years of childhood in Calgary, cannot become president because he was born in Canada.
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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks to the press after leaving the U.S. Senate Chamber on September 25, 2013. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
As It Happens6:29Donald Trump is right about Ted Cruz's ineligibility, says constitutional expert

Donald Trump has been known to be wrong. But on the issue of Republican rival Ted Cruz's eligibility to serve as president, one constitutional expert argues he's spot on.

I feel a little uncomfortable saying Donald Trump is right, but, yes, with regard to the law, he is right.- Mary Brigid McManamon, Delaware Law School.

During Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, Trump repeated his claim that the party's opponents will challenge Senator Cruz's ability to become president because he was born in Calgary, Alberta.

As It Happens1:11Republican candidate Donald Trump challenges rival Ted Cruz on his Canadian roots
During Thursday night's debate, Trump repeated his claim that opponents of the party will challenge Cruz's eligibility to be president because he was born in Calgary.

Mary Brigid McManamon is a constitutional law expert at Widener University's Delaware Law School.

"I feel a little uncomfortable saying Donald Trump is right, but, yes, with regard to the law, he is right," McManamon tells As It Happens host Carol Off.

The U.S. Constitution says that only "natural-born citizens" can become president. McManamon argues that the common law definition of "natural-born citizen" means someone born in the United States.

Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, standing in front of her Calgary, Alberta, home on April 18, 2015, has found out she's living in the first home of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. (Jeff McIntosh/CP)

Cruz was born in Calgary in 1970 to an American mother and a Cuban father, Eleanor and Rafael Cruz. He moved to Texas when he was still a preschooler. (Maclean's magazine reports that Cruz's nickname when the family lived in Alberta was Felito.)

While McManamon says that most parts of the Constitution, such as the notions of due process or equality, were meant to evolve over time, other parts are very specific and the framers assumed they'd be static. The section detailing who is eligible to be president is one of these, she argues.

Senator Ted Cruz responded indignantly during Thursday's Republican debate when both the moderators and his emerging rival Donald Trump pressed him on his Calgary birth. (Rainier Ehrhardt/AP)

Besides setting out the "natural-born" requirement, it also says the president must be at least 35-years-old and must have lived in the country for 14 years.

"Those are not evolvable concepts," she says.

In most cases, Ted Cruz is known to favour an extremely rigid reading of the Constitution. Because of this, McManamon describes his efforts to prove his eligibility "deliciously ironic."

She also notes that the first draft of the Constitution merely stated that the president must be a citizen, but the "natural-born" caveat was added to ensure the commander-in-chief of the armed forces was born in the United States.

McManamon says she doesn't expect the issue to go away any time soon, especially because Trump has been gaining in the polls since he launched his attack on Cruz.

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